


Sidney Crosby and the Jade Cat

by crusherccme



Category: Hockey RPF, Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, Archaeology, F/F, Indiana Jones AU, M/M, Queer History, Sidney is basically Indiana Jones, Treasure Hunter AU, Treasure Hunting, and he deals with a lot of booby traps, more like BOOTY traps haha, this is the good buddy adventure fic you've been looking for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 15:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15294324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crusherccme/pseuds/crusherccme
Summary: Archaeologist and treasure hunter Sidney Crosby is on a quest. Featuring skeletons, booby traps, and tall dark-haired rivals.





	Sidney Crosby and the Jade Cat

**Author's Note:**

> I have a love for all things treasure hunting, including but not limited to Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and Matthew Reilly's Jack West Jr series. So I figured, why not make a hockey fic of it? The adventure is just getting started. Enjoy!

He strode confidently through the ruins, picking his way around scattered rocks and preserved corpses. The morning air was salty and crisp on his tongue, helping to drive away the wisps of jet lag still clinging to his brain. As he passed by building after building, he could almost see life here as it was before - people meandering down the streets, ducking into shops for food or for a gift. The further he walked, the ruins became less and less distinct. Half-excavated walls and pottery and even some bodies rose from the thick soil like headstones from a graveyard.

He didn’t have a map, but he didn’t need one. This wasn’t his first trip here, and it wasn’t likely to be the last. He needed only to follow the sounds of excitement -- equipment drilling, hammers chipping, and conversation flowing. As the newest excavation site came into view, he made his way toward the large tent erected by its edge. One side was open, allowing anyone inside to observe the ongoing activities.

He stepped through the opening, catching the attention of a blonde woman who was looking over a map. “Dr. Crosby?” she asked. At his nod she continued, “I’m Meghan Duggan. Welcome to Pompeii. Thank you for coming out here on such short notice.”

“Please, call me Sidney. And it was no trouble. I hear you’ve got something interesting for me.”

She waved him over to the map. “As you can see, this section is still largely unexcavated. Last week we finished the excavation of what looks to be a bar or restaurant of some sort here,” she pointed to a building towards the center of the unexcavated area. “This is where we are now. There’s a trapdoor behind the bar. We originally thought it might be for a wine cellar or something of the sort, but, well, you might as well see for yourself.”

Sid nodded in understanding. He was often brought in on jobs with unexpected passageways. Sometimes it really was something simple like an extra basement or a wine cellar. The other times though, well, those were certainly the exciting ones. 

There were very few people in the world with a comparable background to his. As an archaeologist specializing in concealed structures and protected artifacts, his expertise brought him to the far corners of the world and back again.

He was, in other words, a treasure hunter. 

Maybe he watched the Indiana Jones movies a bit too much as a kid, since he basically almost became him, but it’s a fun job. He gets to travel the world, meet people from all walks of life, and preserve history and share it with the world. 

They entered the building, Meghan taking the lead. She guided him behind the bar, where halogen floodlights illuminated a rough square hole in the floor, a heavy stone covering pushed to the side. The tips of a metal ladder poked out, gleaming brightly in the light. 

“As thorough as our crew is, we actually only found this completely by chance. Someone dropped a shovel and could tell from the sound it made that the stone wasn’t as solid as it should have been.”

“You’d be surprised how often people find hidden passageways and such that way.”

“I’m sure. Well, let’s have a look.” 

She descended the ladder, and Sid followed. After what felt like a longer trip than it probably actually was, he finally stepped onto a rough rock floor. Lights were already set up, illuminating a short passageway of hewn stone, leading to a heavy wooden door, propped open, partially rotted from age despite the dry air. 

Skeletons littered the passage. Some were huddled together, some alone, while a large number were clustered around the bottom of the ladder. Some had clearly been labeled and set aside to create space for the excavation crew to pass through. 

They must have died down here when the entrance was buried _ , _ Sid realized, and felt a shiver run down his spine. Either suffocation or dehydration did them in, but either way is horrific. 

They picked their way carefully among the skeletons and paused at the door, peering into the gloom beyond.

“Has anyone been in there yet?” Sid asked.

“Not yet, we were waiting for you. Considering that this was sealed up by the eruption and not intentionally, we don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but you can never be too cautious. We don’t want a repeat of Giza.”

Sid grimaced. Some eager archaeologists had really jumped the gun when they found a new passageway inside the Sphinx, thought the passageway looked safe, but were crushed by falling stone only a few meters into their attempted exploration. Ancient civilizations sure were fond of leaving booby-traps. 

“We already used LIDAR to get a mapping of the room.” She pulled out a tablet, turning it to show him a map. White lines stood out starkly against the dark background, the 3D rendering showing a large, rectangular room. The ceiling was low, supported by two rows of four columns, stretching from the entranceway to the back wall. A large, oblong shape stood upright against the back wall, framed by the last columns. A low rectangular shape was centered on the right wall. The left wall was less defined, as if alcoves were carved into it. Masses of small objects lay scattered around the room, with larger clusters before the oblong and rectangular shapes. Likely more skeletons, but you could never be too careful. 

Sidney scanned the rendering closely for classic trap mechanisms -- raised floor tiles, discreetly strung wires, narrow openings in the walls and ceiling. Finding none, he deemed it safe to move his investigation into the room. 

Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out a Maglite flashlight. He favored Maglites for the same reason that law enforcement did -- it was a good quality flashlight and was hefty enough to serve as a weapon in a pinch. It had certainly come in handy in the past. He also pulled out a set of small magnetic metal balls. 

Stepping into the entranceway, he shone the flashlight around the room, taking in more details than the LIDAR could provide. There were skeletons everywhere. They gathered at the foot of a large statue of a half-clothed woman, who gazed cooly at him, and around an altar to the right. Smaller statues rested in ornate alcoves along the left wall. While the LIDAR had been able to capture many of the details of the room, it had failed to depict the large mosaic covering the wall behind the large statue. 

But before he could investigate the mural further, Sid had to ensure that the room was safe. He couldn’t be too careful, as this was often a matter of life or death in his field. 

He set the metal balls on the ground in front of him, then sent them rolling in all different directions across the room. The metallic balls could sometimes trigger hidden mechanisms either through their weight, motion, or magnetic field. With nothing coming of their motion, he deemed the room as safe as could be determined, and turned on a powerful handheld electromagnet to call the balls back to him. 

Pocketing the lot, he turned back to Meghan, and smiled. “I think we’re in the clear.”

She followed him deeper into the room. They picked their way through the skeletons, careful not to disturb any so that the other researchers could fully document the contents of the room later on. They stopped at the base of the statue, taking her in.

“Look,” Meghan said, gesturing towards the statue’s feet, where they rested on a stone bowl-like shell, intact sea shells resting inside the stone one, almost hiding in the folds of her robe. “It’s Venus.” 

Between the statue, the altar, and hints of exquisite detail around the room, he was starting to get an idea of just what this place once was. But just what was a temple to Venus doing in the cellar of a bar? 

He went to examine the mural. Something this large, this detailed -- someone must have really cared about its contents. It appeared to depict two scenes, one to Venus’s left and the other to her right. 

On the left, what appeared to be an Egyptian pharaoh sitting on his throne was handing a statue of two cats with jewel eyes to another man. Or maybe the cats were real? Sid couldn’t tell, but he thought it looked familiar. On the right, the two men, holding hands, were being killed by what appeared to be a horde of Egyptians, as a wave of water loomed over the Egyptians’ heads. 

Suddenly things became a bit clearer. Venus, or Aphrodite as the Greeks called her, was the goddess of many things: love, beauty, pleasure, procreation -- and homosexual love. 

“Sidney, come take a look at this,” Meghan called out from by the altar. She shone her flashlight across its surface so he could see. Mosaic tiles covered the surface, peeking out from beneath the dust she had partially cleared off. He could make out small figures, male, female, and both, covering the surface in every possible combination. 

“I think this was a temple for gay lovers,” he said.

“That’s the impression I got too. It looks similar in the details to the temple of Venus and Roma in Rome, though that was built a few decades after this place was buried.”

“Maybe this place was its inspiration?”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“What I don’t understand, though, is the Egyptians in the mural. What are they doing in the Roman Empire?”

“Maybe there’s some clues in here?”

“Let’s keep looking then. No rush.” He picked his way over to the left wall, admiring the elaborate entablature of the columns as he passed them. 

Of the five alcoves, the middle three held statues of women, bookended on either side by majestic cats. Each woman held in outstretched hands an odd shape: the leftmost a rectangular box, the middle a sphere, and the rightmost a pyramid. Each of the shapes had small hollowed sections carved out of them.

Sid couldn’t think of any ancient goddesses or heroic figures that they could represent. 

His attention was pulled away as Meghan beckoned him back to the mural.

“I think I might have something. Can you shine the light behind the statue for me?”

He complied, standing back to illuminate the entire area. Meghan pulled out a canteen of water and wetted a rag, cleaning some of the grime off the wall. As she did so, he could begin to make out some writing, the tiles just a shade darker than the background. 

After several minutes, the extent of the writing had been exposed. He snapped a few photos on his tablet, making a final tour of the room to document their other findings. They headed back topside, squinting in the bright sunlight. 

As they returned to the tent, they made a quick detour to grab a brunette woman. Meghan made the introduction. “Bells, this is Dr. Sidney Crosby, from the Canadian Museum of History. Sidney, this is Dr. Kacey Bellamy, our resident Latin expert.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Back at the tent, they pulled up the photos, finally able to take a good look at the inscription.

“ESTVNIOBENEDICTVSPERBAST

ESTOCCISVSPERVIR

ESTVINDICATVSPERFEMINA”

As Kacey got to work on the translation, Sidney and Meghan plotted out the temple’s location on the map. It was directly underneath a temple to Dīs Pater, Roman god of the underworld and underground mineral wealth. 

Kacey called them back over in what felt like no time. “So in spoken Latin, this says ‘est unio benedictus per Bast, est occisus per vir, est vindicatus per femina.’ That translates roughly to ‘a union blessed by Bast, killed by man, avenged by woman.’”

“Why was an Egyptian goddess named in a temple to Venus?” Sid asked.

“And in a mural depicting what -- a gay pharaoh? The ‘killed by man’ part makes a bit of sense at least.”

“Hey Sidney,” Kacey said, “isn’t Canada making some sort of queer history museum?”

“Yeah. It’s in the works, but not likely to open anytime soon. Not many artifacts had been collected for it, so it’ll take a while to get everything together. We were told to keep an eye out for anything relevant. I guess this is the sort of thing they were talking about, eh?” 

He could picture it clearly, the mural spread across the back wall of a Roman, or maybe even an Egyptian, room of the exhibit. Though maybe the altar would be for a university museum or something, as it wasn’t as kid-friendly. 

Sid fully supported the project, it was something he’d been wanting for a long time. He didn’t want other gay Canadian kids to grow up as he did: afraid and feeling ignored by the country he called home. To have been able to see queer history preserved, to see it treated as normal -- it would have made a world of difference to him. He wanted the kids of today to be able to have that, for future generations to have what he didn’t. 

What would really top off the exhibit, though, would be something more physical, such as the dual-cat statue depicted by the mural, if it even existed. He’d have to see if he could find out any more information about the men from the mural. Maybe the inscription held some clues.

“Yeah,” Kacey agreed, “but maybe leave all the bodies out of the exhibit, yeah? Don’t want any Night at the Museum type of stuff going on with skeletons.”

“No promises,” he joked, smiling awkwardly. “I’ll pass this on to my crew at the museum, see if they have any ideas about who our mysterious gentlemen might be.”

“Just let us know if there’s anything else you need from us,” Meghan said, smiling. “We really appreciate you coming all the way out here.”

With that said, Sid took his leave, copies of the map, photos, and translation stored safely in his backpack. 

Mind spinning, dozens of theories bouncing off each other, he almost collided with someone as he left the excavation site. 

He looked up -- and up and  _ up _ \-- to make eye contact with a tall brunet man. He really needed to watch where he was going. “Sorry,” he murmured, and hurried off, heading back to to his hotel. He had some calls to make.

 

\--

 

He snapped awake to the sound of an incoming Skype call. He raised his head from where it was resting on the desk, blinking groggily. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep; jet lag was a bitch. 

He answered and was greeted by the familiar sight of his colleagues. Hilary Knight, their ancient civilizations historian, was centered on the screen, while Marc-André Fleury, or Flower as he was known to the museum team, their expert in ancient and modern weaponry, could be seen spinning in his chair in the background. 

“Just wake up?” Hilary asked, grinning. 

“No sleeping on the job!” said Flower, laughing at the affronted look Sid gave him. “Must be on the alert, never know when the volcano could go boom.”

A smile spread across Sid’s face. He was lucky in that his coworkers were also his best friends. It was always good to see them, even when they decided to give him a bit of a hard time.

“There may have been a quick cat-nap, but what else was I supposed to do while you lot took your sweet time getting back to me?”

Flower stuck out his tongue. “Excuses, excuses. The more important question is: did you get us any souvenirs?” 

“Well you see, I had one, but I misplaced it, but the data I sent you could tell you where to retrieve it….”

“Okay, break it up!” Hillary butted in, trying to hide her laughter behind a hand but failing. She gave Flower’s chair a shove, sending it rolling back to his desk. “Back to work, you!” She turned back to Sid. “We did find something for you.”

Sid leaned forward in his chair, eager to find out the mystery behind the mural.

“So I thought it a bit strange for Bast to be mentioned in a Roman temple, so I started from there. Bast was renamed Bastet towards the beginning of the New Kingdom of Egypt, around 1570 BC, so I figured we were working with something from before then. From there I checked into the pharaohs to see if any fit the bill. 

“There was one during the Old Kingdom, at the end of the sixth dynasty, that might be our guy. His name was Teti, he had a male consort, and they were killed by his subjects. After his death his sister, Nitiqret, came into power and -- just wow, what a badass. Get this -- apparently she invited their murderers to a banquet to inaugurate a large underground chamber, and then, when they were all eating, she flooded the room with water from the Nile, through a secret duct, killing them all!”

“Damn,” Sid said, surprised. “Avenged by woman, indeed.”

“Right? Like, if I had to pick someone for a historical threesome…. Don’t give me that look, Amanda would totally back me up on this.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so. Ask her if you don’t believe me.”

“I think I’m good.”

“Ok, so, back to Egyptian badasses. Did you know Nitiqrit was the first female pharaoh? What a babe.”

“Literally none of us has even heard of her before, Hils.”

“Well anyway, I found a couple mentions of that cat statue from the mural. So it’s a jade figurine of two male cats, one with sapphires for eyes and the other with rubies. Teti gave it to his lover as, like, a physical manifestation of his love.”

“Wow,” Sid said. “That’s intense.”

Flower called out from offscreen, “Like you wouldn’t do the same thing once you get a man, Sid. We all know how much of a romantic you are.”

Sid blushed, because, well, he wasn’t exactly wrong. But there wasn’t anything wrong with a bit of romance, now was there?

“As if you’re any better with Véro.” 

Hilary cut back in before they could descend into bickering. Once they got started, he and Flower could chirp each other for hours. “So,” she said, dragging the word out, “I’m sure we all realize how important something like this is for the queer history exhibit. Do we want to go after the cat figure?”

Sid didn’t even have to think about it. “Absolutely. Do we have a location?”

Hilary grimaced. “No, not exactly, but I have a hunch. Teti and his lover weren’t properly buried because they were killed by the people. But Nitiqrit has a pyramid at the South Saqqara burial ground. If she liked them enough to kill their murderers, maybe she liked them enough to bury them, and their cat statue, with her.”

“It’s worth a shot at least.” He considered this for a moment. “With her history, who knows what kind of traps are hidden in her pyramid. Better call the team together, it looks like we’re going to Egypt.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it! Let me know what you think! I'm mostly done with the research for Chapter 2 so the writing will hopefully take place soon. You can also find me on [tumblr](http://crusherccme.tumblr.com/). :)


End file.
